past work / projects | Paula Dunlop

Beaded Assemblages 1 and 2

2013

Glass beads, thread, second-hand t-shirts, calico

29cm x 40cm (framed)

Bead 'drawings' that follow the colours, shapes and designs found on second-hand garments. Corporate logos, children's characters, print designs -- all pulled out, flipped, and abstracted through chance cutting -- are reassembled onto calico and filled with lines of beading.

Exhibited at Artisan, Brisbane in 2013 as part of 'Push/Pull', an exhibition of contemporary needlework.

Foot Piece

(with Madeleine King)

2010

Graphite on Paper

35cm x 50cm (framed)

Commissioned for an exhibition at the Brisbane City Council Library, inspired by the life and work of fashion pattern-maker and publisher Enid Gilchrist, curated by Mark Neighbour.

A stencil taken from one of Gilchrist’s patterns for baby clothes is dropped repeatedly from on high and filled with the strokes of a graphite pencil.

Wearer/maker/wearer

2007-2011

Objects and garments, dimensions variable

Photographs by Paula Dunlop, Damian Dunlop, and the participants

Produced as part of a PhD project, Wearer/maker/wearer is an interrogation of my own love for making and the particular circumstances of my historical, geographical and socio-cultural positioning. It allowed me to examine the bearing of location on how I make: for example, my place in the histories and practices of fashion-making, the limits and possibilities of the tools and materials I had access to, and the friendships that enrich and sustain my living. In short, it became a way for me to explore, be mindful of, and express gratitude for, the circumstances of my location in the world.

Exhibition view, Wearer/maker/wearer

2009

QUT Art Museum, Brisbane

paula dunlop madeleine king cooperative fashion

Cooperative Fashion 1 and 2

(with Madeleine King)

2008

Time-lapse video

“A successful or productive design/creative process is often assumed to be one that follows an efficient or direct path—either from the inspiration to the product, or from the creative problem to the solution.

But sometimes having an idea, planning the outcome and then translating the idea into a finished object of design or art isn't quite so straightforward, direct or simple.

Indeed, we feel that most design and art (or at least, the stuff untouched by the carefully rationalised and streamlined processes of commercial manufacture) is created via a multitude of indirect, exploratory and sometimes rambling paths between problem and solution, or inspiration and product. And, of course, it often needn't start with a sketch or even an inspired idea.

As practitioners we are both heartened and intimidated to know that there is never a single solution and scarcely even a single problem. What excites us about the creative process is that the design/art object is never a lone outcome—rather, the creative process produces a multitude of constructive outcomes, including the knowledge and enjoyment of the process itself.

We're interested in processes that aren't necessarily efficient, rationalised or elegant. The processes we enjoy and find creatively sustaining can be irrational, uncontrolled and even arbitrary—processes that open up as many problems as they do solutions."

Making Response 1-6

2008

Digital print and mixed media on calico

90cm x 90cm

Six large works on calico, created through collage and the re-working of past works—experiments aimed toward locating and harnessing a sensibility for design-through-making. They form part of an ongoing investigation into the tension between process and product within improvised making practices

Chance and Bricolage garments

2008

Organic cotton and reclaimed fabrics

(Exhibition view, How You Make It, Craft Victoria, Melbourne)

Chance and Bricolage garments

2006

Organic cotton and reclaimed fabrics

A collection of garments developed alongside research into chance, bricolage and improvisation.

Experimentation with different procedures—lottery pattern selection, randomised creation of shapes through blindfolded cutting, re-making garments donated by friends—were deployed to seek a way toward an experientially interesting and creatively sustaining design process. An aversion to sketching or planning a decisive end product lead to a material-lead process of draping chance-generated shapes onto the dress form.